


Sugar Rush

by Oparu



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-21
Updated: 2011-01-21
Packaged: 2017-10-14 22:57:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/154377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oparu/pseuds/Oparu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A modern fairy tale of a floating city defeating the darkness, with sugar cookies and festive headgear and a significant dose of holiday cheer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sugar Rush

**Author's Note:**

> written for the_scary_kitty during sparky_santa.

Since the first winter, when the sun sank low over the horizon and night stretched out until the villagers camped beneath the dark sky wondered if they would ever have light again, there have been festivals of light. Ceremonies which centre around the bringing of light back into the world. These exist everywhere the axes tilt and the loss of precious sunlight fills the heart with dread.

On Earth, some people call it Christmas, but our story takes us far from Earth. Across the deep, dark void between the glittering swirls of the galaxy to which Earth belongs and the other oases of light. Somewhere far past the familiar shapes lies another galaxy, one with many reasons to fear the darkness.

The tale of the Wraith is a horribly dark story that we shall save for another time, perhaps during the summer, when the light is high and scary stories aren't that terrifying because dawn is assured. Now is a dark time, so our story shall be one of light. A city of light, to be precise; one adrift on a great ocean. The darkness over the dark water is one more profound than the simple darkness of a forest or field. It is a great darkness, and vast darkness requires even more light than can be produced in a simple festival of solstice.

In fact, far below, in the city of Atlantis, while most worked on paperwork and the business of polishing guns and repairing computers, light through the darkness was far from everyone's minds. Even as the city drifted across the cold dark sea, slipping out of her usual track and heading towards the pole, no one cared for the changing of day into night, and no one noticed that the days were getting shorter and shorter.

No one cared because they were busy working. In fact, it was not until the snow began to fall on the piers of the great city that anyone noticed at all and then, they were so caught up in what they were doing, work, paperwork, and the incredibly busy business of work.

The snow, which fell in soft white flakes all over the city of light, went unremarked by most. Even though it came as a gift, brightening the cool metal of the city with that ethereal quality that only snow has, no one saw it for what it was, but instead focused on that which it meant.

"The city's drifting off course."

John shrugged; keeping the city on course wasn't one of his duties. "I like the snow."

"Well, I don't." Rodney hugged himself and pulled his blue jacket that much tighter around him. "I've had quite enough snow growing up. Snow might be light and pretty in New England, but it's heavy, wet and covers everything for months in Canada. Where we get real snow. If it doesn't stop soon, we'll have to shovel the pier. Do you have any idea how long that'll take?"

His coffee was hot and smelt of cinnamon and there were gingerbread cookies in the shape of puddlejumpers. John grabbed a bunch and balanced them on a plate.

"Long enough for you to need a new jacket."

"Oh very funny, mock me while you take an entire plate of cookies."

"They're not for me."

"Right."

"They're for Elizabeth."

"You bring her cookies."

"Not all the time, Rodney. I bring her cookies when there are cookies. How often do we get cookies?"

Rodney had to think and, considering his affinity for desserts, that added weight to the true rarity of cookies. "Last month, for Doctor Rutinngard's birthday."

"So yeah, I bring her cookies. Does that mean anything if it's once a month?"

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Of course not."

John continued on his way, precious cookies protectively held close to his chest. He had plans for those cookies, and just as he had told his inquisitive friend, he brought Elizabeth cookies, when there were cookies.

He hadn't added that he brought her brownies, puddings, chocolate mousses, cakes, cupcakes and generally anything sweet and exciting that would make her smile. Just as sunrises are a little thing that brighten up the world, Elizabeth's smiles were a little thing that improved John's life.   


* * *

Across the city, buried in the work she was always doing, Elizabeth had worked so much that she was starting to believe she was insane. She believed this because of the bells.

Bells, jingly bells. She was sure she heard bells. Bells had no real place in the 'gate room. Alarms, sure, conversations, maybe even yelling, if the situation called for it. Bells were distinctly out of place. Elizabeth sighed, lifted her eyes from the end of the year paperwork she was trying to finish before the New Year rang in with new paperwork.

Maybe she had finally gotten to the point where she was hallucinating. Form I-ten-fifty-eight, subsection B might have been the form to push her over the edge. Elizabeth had thought that the first thing she'd hallucinate would be something more interesting than bells, however ringing noises were part of the beginnings of insanity, which might be better than paperwork.

Shutting her laptop, Elizabeth left her stylus on the desk and grabbed her coffee cup. Leaving her office for coffee was a necessity, she wasn't giving up on form I-ten-fifty-eight, she just needed more coffee.

Next to the steel coffee pot sat a pitcher of thick yellow liquid. It wasn't orange juice, and the cups that sat next to it were decorated with pretty green leaves. They weren't holly; there were no spiky points on the leaves, but they were still beautiful.

Lifting the pitcher, she sniffed it. Eggnog. Someone, somehow had figured out how to make eggnog and left it next to the coffee. By the smell of it, it has a little rum in it too. She wouldn't put it past John or Major Lorne to have found some way to get rum.

Studying the alcoholic beverage, Elizabeth wondered if it was worth it to just give up. She was already late enough that she was stuck with the end of dinner, reheated entrees and pasta, or a sandwich. Everyone else would already have eaten and be back in their quarters, or watching some terrible DVD that the _Daedalus_ had dropped off for them.

'Megashark vs. Megaoctopus' was not her idea of entertainment, but she'd heard the laughter float up into the 'gate room from the mess hall. The city had enjoyed themselves and that was the important part. Too often they forgot that exploring meant more than running from angry aliens and trying not to have their life energy drained away while keeping up on the incredible backlog of paperwork. Between Stargate Command and the IOA, Elizabeth spent more time justifying what she was doing than actually doing anything. When they invented a form for coffee, she was going to disappear: quit, vanish into the Pegasus galaxy and join a village.

Maybe one of them needed a language teacher or a Latin interpreter, she could be good at that. Most of the cultures they ran into didn't have a lot of paperwork. She liked that. She could just disappear; let someone else deal with the I-twenty-two-A-fifty and the I-thirty-eight-two-F that would need to be filed after her disappearance.

Quelling those rebellious thoughts, Elizabeth relinquished her coffee mug and filled one of the decorated ones with eggnog. It wasn't her favourite drink, but since there was a lack of mulled wine, she took the cup back to her office. As she crossed the catwalk, she had her eyes down on the work she'd brought with her, even to get coffee, and it wasn't until she was standing in her office that she realised he was on her desk.

More improbably, he wore felt reindeer antlers on his head with little bells that jingled as he moved his head. He wasn't the bells she'd been hearing, his were smaller and higher pitched, but they were adorable. John wore them with a rakish air that made her grin.

"Are you Donner or Blitzen?"

He titled his head from side to side, letting them jingle. "I thought I was Dashing."

"Dasher."

"I could be Dasher." He produced a plate of cookies, gingerbread puddlejumpers with racing stripes in icing. One even had little flames, which were red and green.

John replied to her raised eyebrow. "There wasn't any orange, or yellow. Red, green and white." He reached down and pointed at the sprinkles. "Those are the smoke."

"I thought they were just pretty."

He shrugged, choosing the a cookie and holding it up. "They're that too."

With her PADD in one hand and her eggnog in the other, Elizabeth had few choices with the cookie short of eating it out of his hand. If that was his intention, she couldn't be sure, but there was a disarming freedom to it.

So she bit. It was softer gingerbread than she was accustomed too, and her teeth sank into the sweet and spicy cookie. The icing melted across her tongue, blasting across with sugar. It was a pretty fantastic cookie, something that tasted like her childhood, reminding her of her grandparents and long-ago Christmas dinners.

"Icing on your-" John paused and made a vague gesture that covered most of his face. "Here."

Elizabeth couldn't feel anything on her skin, but raised her eyebrows in mock concern.

"Does it match my eyes?"

Studying her thoughtfully, John eyed the cookie, then reached out and smeared icing across her cheek.

"The green does, a bit."

"John--"

She'd taunted him but she'd never expected him to actually play with the frosting.

"How are you going to get it off?" Maybe she was going to far. She hadn't even tried the eggnog yet; she felt emboldened, braver for the ridiculousness of his antlers and the sugar in her belly.

"Good question." John grinned, breaking his ever-serious expression. "It's either going to be thumb or tongue."

"Do I get to pick?" She was never eating sugar again. If it did this to her, Elizabeth was simply going to have to give it up.

John leaned closer, almost as if he was about to make good on the promise of his tongue. "Do you want to?"

"I make decisions all day long." Elizabeth stood close to him, hovering near enough that she could feel the motion of his breath. "Maybe you should surprise me."

"Oh you hate my surprises."

Sipping her eggnog, Elizabeth grinned wickedly. "Your surprises should stop involving people trying to kill us."

"Wasn't always people."

"Dinosaurs are out too."

"Meanie."

"I know, I know, I'm just terrible…"

A millisecond flash of heat on her cheek took the frosting away and ran through the rest of her body like napalm. Everything responded, as if he were the first person in quite some time to awaken her nerves.

He'd licked her. Licked with his tongue.

"Missed a spot."

Then Elizabeth faced a choice. Not between coffee and eggnog, paperwork and watching the snow fall, but between more days of loneliness, of darkness and quiet, or- and this idea of an 'or' was what made her heart turn traitor to her brain and the rest of her body.

Her heart wanted him, antlers and all.

When he return to her cheek, her cheek was not there. Instead of the smooth, feeling skin of her face, John's searching lips found Elizabeth's responsive, hungry ones.

As kisses went, it was far from perfect, partly fuelled by sugar, but entirely full of promise. More clumsy than artful, John saved her eggnog from landing on her desk, and Elizabeth prevented them both from squishing the cookie.

When they broke apart, staring at each other with fear and wonder, Elizabeth did not get the chance to speak. Chaos in the 'gate room, with larger, deeper pitched bells, the bells she'd heard earlier, drew their attention down and away from each other.

Though it is worthy to note that Elizabeth's eggnog remained on her desk, and her hand found a home on John's thigh instead.

Far below them, a connection of another kind had taken place. Colonel Caldwell had beamed in, surrounded by members of his crew, dressed in cheery green hats. The colonel himself had chosen the red and white of Saint Nick, and his "Ho, Ho, Ho!" echoed through the room with more cheer than Elizabeth thought he possessed.

Hurrying down the stairs, they watched in amazement, still hand in hand, as the rest of the crew assembled before them. At Caldwell's feet were great sacks of gifts, hidden within the drab olive of military canvas.

"What is this?"

"You don't have calendars here?" Caldwell asked, shaking his head. He wore no beard, and his hat was his only deviation from uniform. "It's the shortest night of the year."

"And that brings Santa?" Rodney was less than enthusiastic.

John turned to her, mouthing that perhaps the scientist had been a bit naughty.

"We're not bound to December twenty-fifth here, it's another galaxy, and besides, I couldn't waste the snow."

Rodney perked up, and at his side, Zelenka realised why it was snowing. "You altered our course, sent us north."

"It wasn't going to snow where you were."

A titter of surprise went through the crowd. "Who said we needed snow?"

Chuck appeared at Elizabeth's side, also with a festive hat. "I thought it might cheer everyone up, Doctor. Forgive me."

"You hid the program that altered our course, Chuck?" Zelenka's eyes widened, impressed. "Well done."

"The first real Christmas in the Pegasus Galaxy couldn't be blue." Chuck smiled a little from at praise. "After tomorrow, we'll return to where we were, I just thought--"

"It's all right." Elizabeth promised, smiling. "One day of snow might put us all in a festive mood."

"Some of us already are." John teased, jingling his antlers. "Were these your idea too?"

Chuck nodded quickly. "Put them in the mess hall, thought people might like them."

"And the eggnog?"

Teyla and Ronon appeared with a cart of more eggnog, something that smelled divinely like mulled wine, and more cookies than Elizabeth thought could be fit on a tray.

"Weird drink." Ronon grinned. "But fun."

"We know how important this festival is to many of the crew. We wished to assist your celebration." Teyla offered Elizabeth more cookies, these were the symbols of 'gate runes and little flags from every nationality. "The Athosian children enjoyed the decorating almost as much as the marines did."

"Fine motorskills, Doctor," Lorne explained. "Worth keeping fresh."

Rodney stared from the cookies to Caldwell, absolutely past words. Zelenka took a cookie and beamed. Chuck accepted Elizabeth's nod of approval and began to pass out gifts as Caldwell yelled out names.

John's hand slipped to the small of her back and he leaned just close enough to whisper into her ear. "Maybe there will be mistletoe."

On the promise of that, we leave the city of light in the falling snow, knowing that for some the light in their lives may be a cookie, a wrapped parcel or the thought that someone cares, but for others it takes more complex reminders, like lips against lips, to find their way out of the darkness.

For it is in darkness, that we most need the light, and the light of love is the brightest of all.


End file.
